HONG KONG/SHANGHAI, Jan 30 Indonesia's ban on
exports of unprocessed metal ores will boost Chinese shipments
of metallurgical coke by as much as 2 million tonnes a year to
smelters being built in the Southeast Asian nation.

In particular, China will supply coke to its firms
constructing plants in Indonesia to make nickel pig iron, a
substitute for higher grade refined nickel in stainless steel.

The increased shipments underline how Jakarta's drive to
transform Southeast Asia's biggest economy into a producer of
finished goods, rather than simply a supplier of raw materials,
is changing the flow of commodities in the region.

A surge by as much as 2 million tonnes annually as new
smelters come online in the next few years, according to Reuters
calculations, would dwarf last year's 47,000 tonnes.

That growth would provide fresh impetus to China's overall
coke exports, which customs data showed tripled to around 4.67
million tonnes in 2013 after Beijing around a year ago scrapped
a 40-percent tax and quota system on shipments of the material.

"The amount of coke going to Indonesia will rise a lot and
domestic coke prices will certainly climb," said a manager at a
Chinese smelter of nickel pig iron, who declined to be named or
name her company.

Analysts though said that any rise in Chinese prices would
probably be mild due to a supply surplus in the country.

The smelter manager added that her firm would complete a
nickel pig iron plant with blast furnaces in Indonesia in the
fourth quarter of 2014 and would start exporting coke to the
unit in the second half due to low Chinese prices.

Indonesia provided 58 percent of China's 71.3 million tonnes
of nickel ore and concentrate imports in 2013, but such
shipments have ground to a halt since the ban on ore exports
kicked in earlier this month.

Metallurgical coke is used as a fuel and reducing agent in
blast furnaces, as part of the process of making steel or iron
alloys.

The amount of metal in nickel pig iron differs, with
4-percent content being used in China for the 200 grade of
stainless steel, mostly for home appliance and kitchenware.

That 200,000 tonnes of capacity could see 5 million tonnes
of nickel pig iron output based on 4-percent metal content,
consuming around 2.25 million of tonnes of coke. That is based
on 0.45 tonne of coke being used to make a tonne of pig iron, as
is currently the case in China.

Customs data shows that the No.1 buyer of Chinese coke in
2013 was India, with 1.68 million tonnes. China's overall coke
exports last year accounted for around just 1 percent of the
country's total output.

And non-Chinese companies operating in Indonesia could also
ramp up purchases of Chinese coke. A South Korean firm in
December 2013 shipped 5,000 tonnes of coke from China to its
nickel pig iron plant in Indonesia, the manager said.

Chinese prices for spot metallurgical coke currently stand
at about 1,300 yuan ($210) per tonne versus 2013-lows of about
1,200 yuan, according to Umetal.com, which specializes in metals
information and data in China.

Analysts stressed that while prices would probably climb
this year, any increase would be limited due to the domestic
surplus. China consumed more than 319 million tonnes of
metallurgical coke in 2013 compared to production of 476 million
tonnes, Umetal figures showed.
($1 = 6.0508 Chinese yuan)
(Editing by Joseph Radford)

MOSCOW, Dec 9 Carter Page, previously described
as a foreign-policy adviser to U.S. president-elect Donald
Trump, said the purchase of a stake in Rosneft by
Qatar and Glencore made it clear sanctions hurt Western
companies more than the Russian oil major, RIA news agency
reported on Friday.

Reuters is the news and media division of Thomson Reuters. Thomson Reuters is the world's largest international multimedia news agency, providing investing news, world news, business news, technology news, headline news, small business news, news alerts, personal finance, stock market, and mutual funds information available on Reuters.com, video, mobile, and interactive television platforms. Learn more about Thomson Reuters products: